Due to a tight communication blockade, news of the massacre was only revealed internationally in early January 2021 after survivors escaped to safe locations.

[6] Pro-federal-government sources said that the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) gained control of Axum Airport on 11 November 2020.

[10] Getu Mak, a lecturer from Adigrat University, was three weeks into a four-week high-school pupil software training workshop in Axum when the 4 November Northern Command attacks occurred.

[10] The next day on 28 November, from about 06:30[10] or 07:00, the pro-TPLF Tigray militia, armed with rifles, and supported by some of the residents, attacked the EDF stationed near the TV transmitter on Mai Koho mountain immediately east of the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion (Maryam Ts'iyon).

According to Woinishet, on an unspecified date after the Tigray War started, two thousand Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) soldiers entered Axum in tanks and carried out a massacre, firing indiscriminately without warnings.

[14][15] Getu Mak attributed the role of the Maryam Ts'iyon church as being the place where 720 corpses were buried, without specifying the date of burial.

[7] The witness quoted by Libération stated that after the 29 November house-to-house looting and executions occurred, residents were forbidden from burying the corpses for three days.

According to the witness, a priest from Maryam Ts'iyon church stated that on one particular day, 243 victims had been buried, and that people who tried to pick up corpses were shot.

[6] On 19 March 2021, in a video by Channel 4 News posted on Channel4.com, Jamal Osman promised to present a report on the Axum massacre.

He estimated a lower number of casualties than those in other reports, stating, "The international community talked about, [what] had happened in Axum, where 43 people were killed.

[citation needed] The EDF looted Axum "systematically and on a massive scale, leaving residents without food or drink", medicine and cars.

[2] Historians and archeologists expressed concern that the church architecture and the reputedly present Ark of the Covenant, significant in the history of Christianity, were at risk of damage or destruction.

[18] Amnesty International, on the basis of interviews with 41 survivors and witnesses, 20 others with "knowledge relevant to the situation", and satellite imagery from October, November and December 2020 for cross-checking, attributed the massacre to the EDF in its 26 February 2021 report.

[2] Earlier, EDF troops were attributed as the perpetrators of the church and street massacres by Associated Press (AP),[3] Getu Mak,[7] and Martin Plaut's witness.

[20] The EHRC, based on its visit to Axum from 27 February to 5 March 2021, in which it conducted interviews with "survivors, 45 families of victims, eyewitnesses and religious leaders", held a group discussion with 20 residents, talks with local kebele officials, and discussions with medical staff of the Saint Mary and Axum Referral Hospitals, attributed the 28–29 November weekend massacre to the EDF.

[6] Getu Mak attributed responsibility for delayed burial to the EDF, stating, "I saw a horse cart carrying around 20 bodies to the church, but Eritrean soldiers stopped them and told people to throw them back on the street.

"[2] With a ban on journalists entering the Tigray Region continuing as of 11 January 2021, news of the massacre was first provided by survivors arriving in Mekelle after walking by foot about 200 kilometres (120 mi).

On Tuesday, 15th of December, Ethiopian federal troops and Amhara militia approached the Maryam Zion Cathedral in Aksum.

[19][8] In late January, Laurie Nathan of the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies called the reports "credible, though unverified."

Nathan said that the details were not clear, and would not be, until the United Nations or a human rights NGO safely entered the area and conducted an investigation.

[2] Eritrean human rights campaigners, such as Vanessa Tsehaye,[24] have contributed to the Amnesty International report titled "Ethiopia: The Massacre in Axum".

Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report on the massacre on 5 March 2021, based on interviews with 28 witnesses and survivors and the analysis of videos.

The report was based on its visit to Axum from 27 February to 5 March 2021, in which it carried out extensive interviews with survivors, victims' families, eyewitnesses, local residents and officials and medical staff.

[27] Both Eritrean and Ethiopian authorities rejected the statement of a massacre occurring in Axum's St. Mary of Zion Church, deeming it a "fabrication".

[29] They call for a third-party independent investigation into the alleged event, so as to prevent the 41 witnesses potentially being affiliated with the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

The Eritrean diaspora has raised criticisms in the validity of reporting around the alleged massacre, citing inconsistencies between media sources.

A BBC report highlights, "On 3 December, the teenager said that a soldier, dressed in an Ethiopian military uniform, entered their house demanding to know where the Tigrayan fighters were...They said the Eritreans had tended to their wounds".

[32] On 22 January 2021, in response to the massacre, the Polish Foreign Ministry stated, "We strongly condemn the perpetrators of this barbaric crime committed in a place of worship.